chalk and cheese

They are as different as chalk and cheese.

What I am talking about is...... books from Oxford University Press.



↑They are cheese. Wonderful books. Oxford English Dictionary and Thesaurus are my favorites.

The book on top of these dictionaries is "Practical English Usage" written by Michael Swan. This is my best English grammar book. You can find almost everything about British English in this book. In other words, this book might be too precise for the people who want to study the book thoroughly. There are too many contents which even native English speakers don't really know...I guess. But for me who tends to look up the usage, this book is a treasure. Not only you can find what you want to know, but also you learn something extra every time you open this book. The explanations are straightforward and the examples are often interesting. These examples are often very realistic.

Have you not found sentences in your English book, which unlikely fit in our world? We know these were made up for the book. But in this Swan's book, you can find something that fits exactly in our world. They often make sense, which is great.

There is another book called "how English works" by Swan. This book is widely used in English lessons for foreigners, and is very clear, easy to understand with lots of exercises. This book gives you all you really need to know about English grammar although the contents are not much less than "Practical English Usage."



So what is the "chalk" ?



Here they are.
They are the revision books for IGCSE published by Oxford University Press. I have three book from this series, biology, physics and chemistry. I have almost read whole three book, and am surprised how many mistakes these books contain.

The mistakes varies. There are quite many typos, of course, and lots of unclear graphics. They are still acceptable since these mistakes don't affect readers' study. But I found many incorrect descriptions about the subjects, as well as faults in the questiona and answers.

It wtill works for me who have studied sciences before because I know if it is correct or not. But these faults must be confusing for young learners.

I must add one more complaint about these books.

There are English mistakes in these books as well.
I usually don't find English mistakes in English books. I usually just trust natives' writings more than my English skill. Still I find grammar, usage, mistakes in the books. I guess there are more mistakes that I didn't notice.



But... don't be surprised. Generally it seems to be rare that there are few mistakes in these revision books. It is not only about the Oxford revision books.

A person wrote a book review at Amazon.co.uk for a revision book from another publisher to say "this book is excellent. I didn't find any mistakes"....... That book got five stars for not having mistakes.

This is one of the English realities...XD



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